88 On the Campus 



anthropic, brotherly sentiment obtains in our wider na- 

 tional life must be in some large measure attributable to 

 the broad democracy of our public schools. 



The people of this country are just now fortunate 

 above all the nations of the earth. Men say it is because 

 of our isolation. Doubtless in part this is true ; although 

 the old world also in some measure is isolated too. But 

 there are inherent causes for our quiet, our happy, if 

 less interesting, history. The open way to life, liberty 

 and the pursuit of happiness has never been so broad in 

 this world as it is in Iowa at this moment; nowhere is 

 property so safe, religious liberty so secure ; nowhere do 

 so many people participate so largely in the pleasure of 

 the mind because able to read, to write; nowhere is 

 wealth so generally diffused and its enjoyment so ra- 

 tional; nowhere is government so real and yet so mild 

 and so loyally sustained; nowhere is there less distinc- 

 tion of class and even of race ; and this in the face of the 

 fact that at this moment we are thronged with people 

 of every sort and condition, not from the countries of 

 Europe only, but from all lands, all sorts, Jews and 

 proselytes, ' ' Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and the 

 dwellers in Mesopotamia/' all spreading and mingling 

 in our population ; and still we have peace, even in Chi- 

 cago! 



It is admitted that to meet such conditions the only 

 possible transforming agency is the public school; if so, 

 the success is simply marvelous. 



But it will be said, the public schools are not the only 

 factors contributing to our good fortune. This is cer- 

 tainly admitted. No child is educated by any kind of 



